Want to Understand Right-Wing Rage? Go Back to Plato
The rise of right-wing political parties on both sides of the Atlantic has proved almost incomprehensible to mainstream political commentators. How can modern people in an integrated, cosmopolitan world embrace localism, racialism, and tribal identity?
The migrant crisis, and attacks perpetrated by Muslim terrorists, are commonly cited as reasons for right-wing parties’ successes in Europe. Likewise it has been suggested that the right wing in the United States favors protectionist policies in response to lost manufacturing jobs. …
Sick Bodies, Hysterical Pregnancies, ISIS Wives
Conversion Disorder
I wonder if “conversion disorder” — a classical psychiatric term for the conversion of psyche into soma in the form of psychosomatic issues — could be one way of thinking about the present. Especially with so many patients complaining of bodily symptoms, armed at times with cadres of healers; with so many seeking recourse to pharmacological treatments or bodily modification of various sorts, plastic and otherwise; with young men and women seemingly willing to direct violence at any-body, including themselves, in the name of powerful religious ideals. Something increasingly insists on the level of the …
The Guantánamo Saga in Laurie Anderson’s “Habeas Corpus”
A review and reflection
On a brilliantly sunny, fall afternoon, a dozen members of Witness Against Torture — a grassroots group long dedicated to closing the prison camp at Guantánamo — broke from our marathon strategy meeting to see the GTMO-themed installation of the renowned performance artist Laurie Anderson. Titled “Habeas Corpus,” the groundbreaking exhibit was up …
